Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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841. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her attention has been drawn to a delay by Bus Éireann in the issuing of school transport tickets; the reason for the delay; if the printing of the school transport tickets is outsourced to a company outside of the company or the State; and if so, where and when will all outstanding school transport tickets be issued. [41350/14]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Bus Éireann is responsible for the day to day operation of my Department's School Transport Scheme.

In this regard Bus Éireann has advised that the issuing of school transport tickets has been centralised and outsourced to a company based in Dublin, and consequently it may take a little longer to receive a ticket than before. The closing date for payments is usually four weeks before the schools resume and accordingly this provides sufficient time to print and deliver tickets to families who pay the annual charge or submit their medical card details on time.

In general there is no undue delay in the issuing of tickets to families who pay on time with a small number of exceptions which may arise for example when an operational reorganisation of services to provide sufficient accommodation may become necessary, or efforts are being made operationally to accommodate ineligible children on a concessionary basis without incurring additional State cost.

This process is complicated by the large number of families who pay late after the closing date, where every effort is still made by Bus Éireann to accommodate them on services.

The closing date for school transport ticket payments was originally the 25th July 2014 and was extended to the 1st August, but even so new ticket payments and/or medical card details are still being submitted by families at a current average rate of some one hundred a day. Consequently it is not possible to say when all outstanding school transport tickets will be issued because they are being issued on an ongoing basis in response to fresh daily demand.

Some 110,000 school transport tickets have been issued by Bus Éireann for the current school year and children will make some 40 million individual journeys using these tickets.

Families should liaise with their local Bus Éireann office if they have any queries regarding tickets for school transport services; the list of Bus Éireann offices and contact details are available at www.buseireann.ie